The Fed Blog

Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Drowning in Oil

OPEC oil producers continue to put a lid on their output in an effort to prop up prices. Yet the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil is back down to $45.89, below its recent high of $57.10 on January 6. That’s comfortably in the $40-$50 price range that I have been expecting for this year. Despite the 76% plunge in the price of oil from June 19, 2014 to January 20, 2016, US crude oil production fell just 12% from the week of June 5, 2015 through the week of July 1, 2016. Since then, it is up 10% to 9.3mbd.

Interestingly, weekly production held up relatively better in Texas and North Dakota than in the rest of the country when total output was declining. However, the rebound in US oil production has been led by the rest of the country, excluding Texas and North Dakota. Could it be that frackers figured out how to lower their costs in the two states where they’ve been most active, and taken their innovations to the other states? Maybe.

Meanwhile, the 52-week average of gasoline usage in the US is down 0.7% y/y. This may or may not be a sign of a slowing economy. It is undoubtedly a bearish development for oil prices.

Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, and other major oil producers, with large reserves of the stuff, should be awfully worried that they are sitting on a commodity that may become much less needed in the future. Elon Musk intends to harvest solar energy on the roofs of our homes, storing the electricity generated in large batteries while also charging up our electric cars. As long as the sun will come out tomorrow (as Little Orphan Annie predicted), solar energy is likely to get increasingly cheaper and fuel a growing fleet of electric passenger cars. Meanwhile, the frackers are using every frick in their book to reduce the cost of pumping more crude oil. Rather than propping up the price, maybe OPEC should sell as much of their oil as they can at lower prices to slow down the pace of technological innovation that may eventually put them out of business.

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ABOUT: Dr. Ed Yardeni is the President and Chief Investment Strategist of Yardeni Research, Inc., a provider of independent investment strategy and economics research. This blog highlights excerpts from our research service, which is designed for investment and business professionals.

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